


can't decide if you'll be yours or mine

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 05:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11479149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: "Glasgow isn't that big."





	can't decide if you'll be yours or mine

**Author's Note:**

> someone: jess wtf how can you ship this  
> me: you cant tell me that holdstair didn't have sex in college, glasgow isn't that big. 
> 
> (or 5 times, holdstiar met on a train + 1)

1

“Holden Radcliffe.”

“I know.” 

His hand falters, hovering in the air, unshaken.

This isn’t how this conversation was supposed to go. He was supposed to introduce himself to a stranger taking the train into the university. Make a new friend, maybe. Make any friend at all. 

Instead he’s stuck here, in a weird limbo where someone knows him. 

People aren’t supposed to know him.

Not yet.

Not until he gets a PhD under his belt, and tenure at a decent university, and research opportunities. 

Not when he had done his best to keep his head down through his entire first year of university and not be noticed for fear of making enemies. 

“You know?” 

The other person - who knows him, despite the fact that Holden can very much confirm the situation does not go both way - gives a vague nod, before unfolding the newspaper in his lap. 

Holden tries again.

“How do you know me?”

This time he does get a response, a pair of blue eyes looking up to meet his own, and Holden suddenly remembering that which the situation doesn't go both ways he very much does, which isn’t fair at all. Especially not fair when those eyes seem to sweep over him in a way that seems to be analyzing but also something more. He sits up straighter involuntarily. 

“We take the same train in every morning,” the stranger says.

Which doesn’t explain how he knows his name, but well… This isn’t the first time Holden’s introduced himself to someone on the train. But that would mean -

“You’ve been watching me?” 

A noncommittal noise, and then “You still living with your mum and dad?” 

“It was cheaper than the dormitories,” Holden says, trying not to sound defensive. He’s not sure why he feels the need to defend himself to someone he doesn’t even know but he does. Even going so far as to add “And first years always get assigned strangers…”

Another noncommittal noise.

And then finally a hand stretched out, to reach his which had still been hovering there. Something Holden would’ve been embarrassed about if there wasn’t another hand in his. Steady and warm - “Alistair Fitz.” 

  
  


2

Living with Alistair was nothing like Holden had ever expected. 

Nine times out of ten is was poor communication and cramming for exams and the collection of empty bottles above the fridge. 

But then there were moments like this - moments that he could never have predicted before. Ones that he can never predict even when they happen, but they do, suddenly, a warm mouth slotting against his on the train.

They’re standing up, too cramped to grab a proper seat this late at night, in London for a lecture series, somewhere that nobody knows their names. 

He thinks that’s why Alistair does it.

Kissing him here, in a city full of strangers, one hand on his jacket tugging him closer, while the other braces on the wall to hold them in place as the train jerks and moves. He feels a little light headed, maybe it’s from the train or the time of night or the beers they’d had after the lecture or from being kissed like he's important. But it doesn’t matter why.

Not right here.

Not right now.

Nothing else matters but opening his mouth up and returning the kiss desperately like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, like he might never get this chance again. 

He _might_ never.

Every time he is forced to remember that  and it makes Holden more desperate than he’d like to admit. Deepening the kiss, and pressing against him, needing more and more and more. 

When the train jerks to a stop, Alistair pulls back from him. He forces himself not to make a noise at the loss, to show how much he needs this to continue, how it feels as though his life might actually depend on it.

“When we get back to the hotel I want to fuck you.” 

He knows that he should stop this, at some point, he should.

This won’t work out. 

There’s no happy ending here.

In the morning, Alistair is going to pretend none of this happened.

In a week, he’s going to get drunk and angry and insist that he’s not  _ gay _ . 

In a year, they’re going to be strangers to each other.

But in the moment, standing there on that train, pressed as close together as possible, Holden says, “Yes.” 

 

3

He’s coming back from the library when he sees them. 

Just wants to get back to his apartment, the one he shares with strangers, some guy in an improv group and a girl with a nearly feral cat, because he couldn’t spend another year with the person seated two rows ahead of him.

With the person that he might have been falling - 

It doesn’t hurt as much as he imagined it would.

They’d ran into each other on campus once or twice.

There had even been that time as they bar when Alistair called him his  _ old roommate  _ instead of his  _ ex _ . 

Though none of that had prepared him for this. 

For the sight of Alistair with his arm over some girl’s shoulder, whispering into her ear, his other hand creeping up underneath her skirt and Holden has to look away pointedly, out the window, away from whatever that is.

He gets up at the next stop even though it’s not his, even though the next train doesn’t come for another thirty minutes, he’ll stand on the platform and wait because it’s better than sitting here and - 

“Holden?” 

He does not look up, does not acknowledge his name. Just tugs his backpack up his shoulder and hurries out the open door. 

 

  
  


4

“Is this seat taken?”

“No,” he says without looking up from the books he has spread out across the train’s table. Notes on his thesis which is nearly complete, just missing a few minors details. He figures that’s why he doesn’t recognize the voice.

Not at first.

But he does. 

Eventually, a delayed reaction, but then his brain catches up reminds him that he would know that voice anywhere, and when he finally looks up from his notes, he finds it’s just who he suspected.

Alistair.

He looks far too worn down for their age, not worn down in the way that Holden is, by the weight of grad school, but by something else. There’s circles under his eyes, a newspaper he seems to barely be looking at in his hands, and a brown paper bag not doing a very good job to hide the bottle within in. 

There’s a ring on his finger that Holden can’t help but notice, a simple gold band. 

He doesn’t remember the last time they say each other.

Before graduation, something in passing, but not much. Not a conversation. Not the two of them sitting barely a foot apart on a train. 

There’s a ring on his finger that Holden can’t help but notice a simple gold band. 

“You look tired,” he says without thinking about it. Without stopping himself to think that maybe this isn’t the best way to greet someone he hasn’t seen in years. Someone that he used to care about. 

But Alistair doesn’t take offense, he makes a noise not quite a laugh, too dry for that - Holden knows what his laughs sound like - before saying, “The baby kept us up.” 

“The baby?”

He’s not sure what his voice sounds like.

Not right.

He knows it’s not the right sound, but Alistair is pulling out his wallet, and a folded picture from within it and Holden doesn’t know much about babies, what they’re supposed to look like, what he’s supposed to say.

"His name's Leopold."

“He looks like you.” 

 

5

“You’re drunk.” 

He’s stating the obvious. They’re both well aware of that fact.

A coping mechanism, because it’s been over twenty years since the last time he saw this man, since the last time he leaned against Holden for support after having one too many, but it feels like the first time all over again.

He’d thought he was over this.

There was Agnes and he’d thought - 

Then again, hat hadn’t worked out well either. 

Maybe it was a sign. 

Maybe he was the one that wasn’t meant to have a happy ending. 

Maybe - “I know.” 

“You know?” 

There’s silence for a long moment. Holden focuses instead on the sound of the train moving beneath them, because it’s better than focusing on the way Alistair smells like a liquor cabinet and makes him want to make another bad decision. 

Thankfully he’s saved from doing something he’d regret, when Alistair says, “I hear you’re good at finding people.” 

“How did you hear that?”

“Pass on a message for me.” 

 

+1

“You know the last time I rode a train was years ago, and it was only for a mission so it doesn’t even really count. I had to pretend to be Daisy’s girlfriend, we were all rubbish at undercover work back then and-” he’s still talking, telling Holden about some previous SHIELD mission with enthusiasm that he wishes he could match. 

He nods along in interest, because that’s what he does, that’s what they always do, tell each other things while they’re working to distract from the project at hand. 

To distract from the fact that Holden technically isn’t supposed to have  _ projects  _ since he’s on probation. 

To distract from the fact that being on a train again with someone whose blue eyes look familiar enough to hurt after all these years.

“What about you?” 

“What,” he says, jerking himself back to the present. 

Feeling bad at having been caught not listening, but the smile he’s met with is soft and forgiving and that at least is unfamiliar. 

“When was the last time you rode a train?”

Lying is easier than admitting the truth, “I don’t remember, it’s been years.” 

 


End file.
